CVEG – Ecodorp Zuiderveld Restoring the earth based on our pillars well-being, ecology, community responsibility and awareness

The ecovillage Zuiderveld is an intentional urban ecovillage in the North of the Town of Nijmegen. It is the first location of CVEG, the cooperative association of ecovillages in the province of Gelderland. The vision of the association is to contribute to the restoration of the earth. The ecovillage is also a showcase that it is possible to build in the Netherlands in a sustainable and circular way with limited budgets.

Well-being

The ecovillage wants to be a place where everybody works together for physical and mental health on the basis of positive health principle.

Ecology

We strive towards a Low ecological footprint by our building projects and our community way of living. The main principle is to reduce our footprint and to close the earth system cycles.

Community

The communal objectives are connection and commitment for each others personal goals. We organise events for ourselves and neighbours, community training programs (CLIPS) and learn from (ecovillage) networks in the Netherlands and Europe.

Challenges

An important part of ecovillage development in the Netherlands is finding and getting a piece of land to build. We established a cooperation with a social housing company in 2017 and decided to build 46 houses in different formats and a community house based on the principles of circular economy. Together we decided to build this community in three housing blocks, a seperate barn, a permaculture garden and orchard.

A contractor has build the houses and we have build barn. We used as much as possible circular building materials. All houses have clay wall plaster and used kitchens. The buildings were delivered in March 2021. In this urban ecovillage, close to the city centre of Nijmegen, now almost 100 persons are living.